Responsible Investing

Growing consumer interest in issues like the environment, fair trade, poverty and human rights is boosting the number of people who are looking for investment opportunities that match their principles.

More charities also want to invest in line with their missions, while a survey by ethical finance experts Eiris and the Charity Finance Directors’ Group shows that 45% of charities have had ethical investment policies in place for some years.

Ethical or socially responsible investing (SRI) is not new – the Quakers were doing it a hundred years ago – but it is evolving and becoming increasingly mainstream, particularly among institutional investors.

More than £13bn is invested in green and ethical unit trusts and other funds based in the UK, according to Eiris.

While this is only a fraction of the UK funds market, globally trillions of dollars are invested using responsible strategies. More than a thousand firms managing $45trillion are signed up to the UN-supported Principles of Responsible Investment.

So what does an SRI portfolio look like and are such strategies profitable? And how can investors and managers ensure their holdings are ethical?

Our event will hear from SRI experts about how the sector is growing and changing.

While some ethical investors seek to exclude unethical companies from their portfolios – so-called negative screening – others are more focused on improving business practices through engaging with corporates as investors.

One US study of thousands of such engagements by a large institutional investor found a 7% outperformance in investee companies in the year after initial contact.

To find out more about how SRI investors are combining profits with principles, come to our event.